His new one looks to be continuing along the theme of the last one. A shame, because in amongst all the anti-vaz, anti-lockdown rubbish on his last album were some of the best songs he’s done for decades.
Conspiracy-along-a-Van Part 2
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What a truly horrible cover
To be fair, all of his recent albums have had impressively awful artwork.
I know, but this is just awful.
I hope the owners of the copyright on Invasion of the Body Snatchers sue him for infringement.
Only recently paid a couple of hundred euro to take Mrs J to see see him at Limerick castle as a 20th anniversary present. This does not bode well
And he had to change that wrestling cover due to not having permission.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t wrestling with his conscience – he just didn’t have a conscience with his wrestling.
Have a good week until next week, Colin!
Clever Colin
Strange times. I remain astonished that an artist of his stature continues to pursue such an overt and strident path. I wonder who he thinks those hands on the cover belong to?
@Martin-Hairnet I don’t agree with his views but I don’t mind him having them.
I have more of a problem with people ridiculing his music because they don’t like his views. To me that is pretty sheep like and I will judge the songs when/if I hear them.
Seeing him no at Black Deer in June and to be honest whenever I have seen him he has been very good except for the speeded up Mondance.
I’d describe myself as a Van agnostic. Have half a dozen of his albums, seen him live a couple of times in the late 80s and early 90s when Georgie Fame was in the band. Some of his stuff is transcendent and I have enormous respect for his music. What I don’t respect are his views on lockdown and the haranguing way he chooses to present them. He’s never shown much interest in overt political statements before, as far as I know, and this sudden shift feels weird and opportunistic. It’s like Macca suddenly releasing a QAnon concept album. Sure, write a few songs to let us know how you feel, Van. We get you’re not happy about it. But if he’s going to patronise us with the kind of cover shown above, then I think it’s only natural to expect a little push back.
Which reminds me. Didn’t George Harrison once endorse the Natural Law Party, fierce advocates of yogic flying?
He did too.
Preferred Yogic I Am the Walrus meself.
(Jesus, that’s shite even for me)
PS Macca did the opportunistic 9/11 song Freedom and wasn’t very ‘peace and love’ in the run up to the Iraq war.
Under scrutiny, the ‘flying’ turned out to be no more than a prolonged bounce. Never were the words of Sir William of Bragg more apposite:
“The laws of gravity are very, very strict
And you’re just bending them for your own benefit”
Good call on Freedom. Raised a few eyebrows, I think.
Don’t look at this scurrilous nonsense, it’s not funny.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Yogic_flying
Soon to be an Olympic sport:
Big Van fan since way back (or way, way back as he himself might have put it).
Problem is, he started to churn out half-baked albums so fast, my buying of his output slowed.
After being underwhelmed by one too many albums hailed as being his best in years (Magic Time, Born to Sing, blah, blah, blah) I eventually stopped buying them altogether.
The three tracks I heard of LRPV1 failed to convince me to investigate any further. Seen him many times over the years, but the last time he was so poor he didn’t so much phone in his performance as have ex-sideman Brian Kennedy’s secretary phone it in for him.
Giving him one last shot at the end of June as Mrs J has never seen him and its our 20th anniversary. Hope transcendent and not truculent VTM turns up on the night
Well he believes he’s transcended.
Actually anything with Brian Kennedy was my least favourite Van.
…was my least favourite Van
My least favourite van was the Bedford Rascal – tiny thing with a small engine. little load space. and quite unstable on corners when loaded
Mine was Van Helsing (usually played by Peter Cushion). Talk about a spoilsport.
My least favourite van was Van Diemen’s Land.
Do Do Do De Boo Do Do
Ice Ice Baby!
Fat Harry White had a Rascal. Don’t think he used it much for driving though.
Ohhhh yeah
@Moose-the-Mooche
Applause!
“Wake up?”
No.
Already taken a scythe to the Van Morrison CDs and severely tempted to go the whole way, just keeping Them and the “Skiffle Sessions.”
New product from Van always seems to do wonders for the Spring cleaning.
Once again the Nation falls to its knees to beg deramdaze to rethink.
What’s he got against the former MP for Leicester East?
So what is actually left in your collection @deramdaze
If I’ve been paying attention the past few months, I think it’s this:
Lonnie Donegan – Backstairs Session (1956)
Colin Hicks & His Cabin Boys – Giddy Up A Ding Dong (1959)
Tony Sheridan & the Beat Brothers – My Bonnie (1961)
The Very Best of Englebert Humperdinck (1970)
You made one of those up
Nobody is called Humperdinck
It’s very sixties in a way, though innit? All this “don’t let the fascist government tell you what to do” could be the MC5 or Country Joe.
Yebbut no. Morrison is calling “us” sheep. MC5 and Country Joe were exhorting us to kick out the jams, amongst other things. Morrison is a hectoring finger-pointer, always knowing more than us poor slobs, closer to a Jehova’s Witness than a spokesman for a generation.
He’s actually in his 70s though.
Certainly old enough to know he should have put
this nonsense behind him.
The song titles suggest more of the same alas. One track, ‘Pretending’ is available online; it’s inoffensive but dull.
Meantime I am listening to his 1971 Marin County live performance which has been released on vinyl under the dreadful title It’s Too Great to Stop Now, and it is, of course, sensational. Whatever he inflicts on us these days the brilliance of his best work remains undimmed.
I heard Pretending and thought yeah that’s about right, at least you are admitting it to us now.
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/vanmorrison/pretending.html
Looking at this and the lyrics to Nervous Breakdown I’m actually worried about him. He sounds like he’s in trouble.
You could be right
https://lyrics.jspinyin.net/lyrics-van-morrison-nervous-breakdown/
Christ…😯
What’s he trying to say here?
Nervous Breakdown is out on streaming sites, and, in fact, contrary to the tone of the lyrics, it is surprisingly jaunty and all a bit retro 60s in similar vein to Kingpin on the last album. He may say he’s having a Nervous Breakdown (though lets not forget, kids, lyrics are usually fiction, not autobiography) but he sounds like he’s having a high old time singing about how miserable he is.
Inoffensive but Dull
There’s the title of Van’s next album right there
How about “Offensive And Dull”.
I actually thought ‘What’s He Trying to Say Here” sounded more like a contemporary Van title…
The Van game is to choose any phrase any phrase any phrase and say it like Van would when he thinks he’s being instinctive ( instinctive instinctive)
If You Really Want To Know
(Music and lyrics ©Sir George Ivan Morrison)
Oi’m feelin’ a bit shit
If yer really want to know
Tanks fer askin’
Now piss off an’ leave me alone
(Dis is der bit where) der horns go toot toot bippity bop
(Dis is der bit where) der horns go toot toot bippity bop
I’m fekkin’ pissed off
Oi’m der one runnin’ the show
It’s not your fekkin’ business
If you really want to know
(Dis is der bit where) der horns go toot toot bippity bop
(Dis is der bit where) der horns go toot toot bippity bop
Buy dis record album
Don’t make a bleedin’ fuss
It’s got like songs what I wrote
Waitin’ for der bus
(Hyndford Street and the Falls Road, William Blake in the bap shop, goin’ home, pissed me pants on der last bus, readin’ Yeats an’ poetry like, goin’ home …)
(Dis is der bit where) der horns go toot toot bippity bop
(Dis is der bit where) der horns go toot toot bippity bop
It’s Sir George to you, pal
Don’t wear no evenin’ gown
I ain’t been Madam anybody
Since I lived in Dublin Town
(Dis is der bit where) der horns go toot toot bippity bop
(Dis is der bit where) der horns go toot toot bippity bop (repeat till fade)
You ever thought of, like, writing a book?
I have this idea abut a car? It’s, like, possessed by the devil.
What about a fictional account of a Celtic Soul man possessed by a curious mixture of anger, self-interest, nostalgia, weird religions, Mahalia Jackson and pastries?
Wearing women’s underwear and singing cover versions
Up In Me Nan’s Room
(Music & lyrics ©Sir George Ivan Morrison)
Nothin’ to do Sunday afternoon
Tryin’ on corsets an’ that
Up in me Nan’s room
Overlooking the cut the trains smokin’ past
Me wavin to the passengers coo-ee darlin’
Get me in me support hose and bra
Dancin’ round the room la-de-dah
Madame George they call me up the clinic
When I have to get stuff taken out
“What’s ‘e got up there today nurse?”
Fuck’s sake, Doc, no need to shout
You seen it before an’ seen worse
Me in frock an’ curlers in the function room
An’ some Vaseline in me purse
Van Morrison parodies, bad-tempered politics threads, ooh aren’t music magazines predictable…. it’s like the Afterword equivalent of the legends slot at Glasto this week.
Y’all havin’ a guid tahhhhhm?
Who asked you? Vitriol clogging up the comments.
Incidentally, I don’t think Van has been anti-Vax, so much as anti lockdown, which he unquestionably has been. He seemed mainly against that because it was stopping him working and earning.
Hmpf. I used the very same excuse myself, but didn’t record an album about it, just emailed the boss.
I didn’t know you had an actual job, Gary
I volunteer in a “boudoir”.
Hey @tiggerlion, you’re slacking off. I was expecting this morning have my conviction that Sault’s Bandcamp account has been hacked challenged by a trademark Friday morning Tigerman drop acclaiming their new release a “misunderstood masterpiece” which you expect “will feature among my favourites at the end of the year”..
It’s not the Sault I know. I love choral music and I love strings but, oddly, AIR doesn’t sit right with me. It’s not very funky, is it?
(Caveat: I haven’t listened six times yet. 😀)
It’s certainly not what I was expecting but there isn’t anything objectionable about it. Try giving Ghosted by Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthing and Andreas Werliin a listen. It was along with Sault released today. It’s more chewy.
Thanks. I certainly will.
Wow! @pencilsqueezer, as always, you’ve come up trumps.
I thought you’d like it.
Great cover too.
👍
Is he still a scientologist? It would explain much.
He was until very recently but his e-meter went on the blink and the e-meter man still hasn’t been round to read it.
It breaks my heart that Chick Corea was caught up with this tosh.
You have to have a weird-shaped void in your life if Scientology fills it.
Judging from this glowing review, it’s probably best to keep an open mind:
“Further evidence of the rich creative streak that one of the world’s greatest artist’s is currently on.
What’s It Gonna Take? features fifteen new Van Morrison compositions that collectively reflect the artist’s indefatigable drive to record and perform live in front of audiences. The album is preceded by Pretending – a gorgeous restless soul track …”
Oh wait, this is from vanmorrison.com. As you were. “Artist’s”, yet.
And he claims to annoyed about bullshit journalism. I can’t really think of any artist more committed to trashing his legacy.
It’s sad.
His back catalogue deserves the same level of care and presentation as Neil Y or Bob D.
Given the huge numbers of fantastic outtakes collections and live albums that are out there, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t
He couldn’t even keep it together for that series of remastered versions of current releases to be completed , let alone collaborate or have the trust to allow someone to do a bootleg series, much as I agree with the idea.
My initial response to the news that the whole back catalogue was being reissued, if I remember correctly, was:
“Jimmie, Jimmi-eeeeeeeeee, chinn-eeee reck-on,” before (metaphorically speaking, of course) ruffling what is left of Van Morrison’s hair and giving him a wedgy.
A point of view that has since been proved to be 100% correct.
They all/mostly got remastered and released on the hi-res download sites – I dunno about streaming. So it was only the actual CDs he couldn’t be bothered with.
Hardly getting the product to his fanbase then.
I’m visualising a potential Van Morrison music-product-purchaser right now, and the image I’m receiving is middle-aged/white/male, who “might” own a record player, “might” own a cassette player, will almost certainly not be on track with hi-res download sites, but will definitely own a facility for playing compact discs.
I’d pitch any reissue campaign to that fella.
So what the fuck is that about. Remastered, significantly getter sound but I wont put them out as CDs where, presumably, he gets more money.
Presumably done as a “new” release to screw more money out of the streams. I don’t stream, so I can’t comment on their availability, but the hi-res downloads sound great.
I don’t know how much he gets from CDs, either – possibly nothing, given the poor deals many signed back in the olden days.
He embarked on -‘ and quickly abandoned – a full (well except for Tupelo Honey and So You Win Again) reissue programme about 15 years back.
Remember buying Veedon Fleece (my fave Van album), which had two or three derisory extra outtakes and fuck all in the way of explanatory sleeve notes. The whole of that particular reissue programme seems to have petered out shortly afterwards
Lack of sleeve notes is especially sad as VF was recorded at a pivotal moment in Van’s life – on a post-TLTSN tour and album high and back home in Ireland for the first time in ages but about to start an arid five-year patch in his career
There have been some superb reissues. relatively recently all on CD
A 4 disc supplement to It’s Too Late to Stop Now (inc 1 DVD)
5 disc Moondance (inc 1 Blu-ray)
Astral Weeks with bonus tracks
Street Choir with bonus tracks
A 3 disc Healing Game set (his last great album)
All were very reasonably priced at least initially
The Too Late set is fantastic, one of the best VM releases ever, period.
Let down by lack of decent sleeve notes and poor remastering of the Rainbow video.
Music is magnificent though.
Had the chance to see the show at
Birmingham Town Hall and stupidly didn’t go.
Biggest regret of my musical life
If sales of new CDs are as poor as most pundits reckon they are, he wouldn’t make any money from remasters being put out on physical formats. Not by the time the the production, promotion and distribution costs have all been deducted from his royalties. See also for vinyl.
There’s remasters and reissues out on CD every week. Someone must be making money from them.
Box sets are the current success story in CD retailing – from 3CD up to 30+ CD. More really is more, at present.
Unless the artists have managed to acquire all of the rights to their work from their old labels, it won’t be them.
Especially artists whose album didn’t sell the first time round and (unlike with Van) the label didn’t recoup the advance they gave.
With these box sets, how much do the artists end up getting? That recent Nucleus box could not have been cheap to produce. I can see the label making a bit over cost on it so they can carry on putting boxes out, but would there be much left for the artists and their heirs?
There actually are four-figure sums for artists from the Repertoire box sets, Mike. And five-figure sums (sometimes high ones) from the Madfish enormo-boxes.
Glad to be proved wrong on what artists get from box sets, Colin.
Possibly, possibly not.
1. These remasters were a while ago, before sales plummeted
2. People are still issuing cds. Sales have shrunk not disappeared.